Trauma in Junot Diaz's drown

In his collection Drown Junot Diaz writes about the experiences of immigrants from the Dominican Republic-especially as observed by Yunior, the narrator of several of the book's stories. The majority of the text focuses on life in New York City and its suburbs. However, the collection has two somewhat anomalous pieces: and its companion No Face, which are set in the Dominican Republic. These two stories describe a different type of poverty and life than in other parts of the book. Further, these narratives focus not on Yunior or members of his family, but on a deformed Dominican teenager. Diaz seems to make this character the heart of the book because he opens with Ysrael and returns to him before closing. Readers have to figure out how Ysrael relates to other stories of self-expression and economic entrapment while also navigating Diaz's political agenda(s) in the collection. Ysrael, the first story, chronicles Yunior and his brother Rafa's early childhood living in Santo Domingo over summer vacation. Rafa is a rebellious teenager who wants to cause trouble and provocation. Yunior is nine and follows Rafa around trying to learn how to be cool. During the action of the story, we are introduced to the title character, a boy who wears a mask to hide his pig-mauled face. When Rafa and Yunior meet Ysrael flying a kite one afternoon, Ysrael tries to help the brothers find their way to a local store. During a conversation Ysrael tells the boys that he got the kite from his father in New York (16) and that he is going to receive an operation in Canada. This information causes Rafa some jealousy because his father only sends a card and an occasional shirt and pair of jeans for Christmas (16). Out of an underlying animosity and a deep-felt curiosity Rafa attacks Ysrael with a bottle upon returning from the store. After rendering Ysrael unconscious, Rafa removes his mask to see his disfigured face, which Yunior describes: His left ear was a nub and you could see the thick veined slab of his tongue through a hole in his cheek. He had no lips. [...] He'd been an infant when the pig had come into the house (18-9). The impressionable Yunior is startled by this damage and wants to leave the scene. So what is Diaz's point? Why do we get the story of a minor character before developing the book's focal character, Yunior? Part of the answer is that introduces the motifs of masking identity and violence that figure throughout the book. (Most of Drown's stories focus on wearing figurative masks to hide pain, identity, and loss). On a literal level, Ysrael's mask and his defacement follow these motivic patterns. But is also about coping with trauma, which the mask at once screens and announces. Neither a sign of denial of the mauling nor an effective shield against fresh forms of violence, Ysrael's mask is an item that demands witnessing, the article that insists on an explanation. Ironically, the mask subverts the harsh reality of trauma by making people comfortable around him. Comfort and the societal acceptance brought with it paradoxically deny Ysrael's chance to share/release his psychological and physical burdens. Diaz, to make the book work effectively, must unmask Ysrael for the reader because he is a germane character who embodies qualities of Rafa and Yunior. Moreover, Ysrael gives Diaz's work more emotion and power. Particularly, when Diaz reveals Ysrael's suffering and anguish in No Face, it reminds readers of the painful and oftentimes traumatic background of neo-colonial experience. …

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